Mike Fisher had said the correct location. That wasn't an exaggeration.

Have you ever been to the disused Heartland Hospital Center?" Fisher had asked Nikki.

Nikki's gaze had wandered from Katherine to Jane to Elizabeth, Maggie, and Nick. Everyone had shaken their heads, even the redhead.

"No," the young officer admitted. "And I don't think I missed anything either."

Fisher seemed beaming over his face and stepped towards the young woman. "Well, get ready for something." He had then made a few calls, and the whole team had left for Heartland Hospital Center.

Katherine had found Colin Lyons' cell phone number. He had been on fire immediately and suggested they come straight to Heartland Hospital Center to look at the filming location. Katherine quickly printed out a confidentiality agreement and put it in her portfolio.

Thirty minutes later, Fisher led them through the basement areas of Heartland Hospital Center. He had probably once had an affair with a female doctor who had shown him the cellars. Old equipment and rotten furniture stood around, as well as operating tables that had been gathering dust for decades. Cobwebs hung in every corner, and small pieces of stone, mortar, and lime, which had trickled from the walls and ceiling over time, crunched under the soles of his shoes with every step. There was no light in some rooms, so Fisher had to shine a flashlight, and the others had to use their smartphones. On the other hand, some corridors were lit by neon tubes, some of which had long since given up, while others flickered frantically, turning the room into a cross between a torture chamber and a tunnel of horror. In others, dusty sparklers hung from the ceiling on cables that looked as if they dated back to the World War II and which no one had touched since, as no one wanted to find out whether the poorly insulated cables were still live.

"Oh yes," Nick said, "the perfect horror movie atmosphere.

Fisher, Elizabeth, Katherine, Nick, and Nikki looked like foreign bodies in this eerie world of decay, filth, and pain.

They returned to the room where they had started their tour. A stocky figure was already waiting for them there."

"Colin!" cried Katherine.

"Kate, good to see you!" said Lyons. The two of them hugged. "So you need a good movie from me?"

Katherine nodded and took the form out of her portfolio. "And a signature. You're working with a government agency now, so you must sign applications immediately."

"From the cradle to the grave, forms --" Lyons grinned and scribbled his signature on the paper.

Elizabeth scrutinized Lyons. He hadn't changed much since then; maybe he'd gotten a little fuller, which might have been due to long nights in the cutting room with potato chips, Coke, and beer.

Colin Lyons had longer dark hair, a somewhat scruffy beard, and a reasonably large belly, but that didn't stop him from moving with great speed and agility. He wore a black T-shirt, not one with a horror motive, but with a hand showing Mr. Spock's Vulcan salute and the words Live long and prosper underneath. The lieutenant had to smile a little.

Lyons looked around a little. "Looks great here. Morbid! Perfect!"

"Watch out," Katherine said, looking at her sister. "Liz and I will quickly tell you what it's all about."

Lyons had already heard much about the hunt for the God of Blood from the media. And he was more than surprised when he discovered this was precisely what the case was about.

"Terrible thing," said Lyons. "Abusing children as instruments of murder."

Well, thought Nikki, we're staging a child as a murder tool.

Lyons looked around one more time. "How about we take another look at the location together?"

Katherine nodded slowly. "Good idea."

They entered the cellar from the other side. It wasn't idyllic here, either. Nikki's gaze wandered over the tables and equipment. Surgical instruments, tweezers, retractors, clamps, grasping forceps, bone saws, and more lay on several tables and dusty shelves. Some instruments had brownish stains, and Nikki hoped they were rusty.

The old-fashioned devices lying dusty on the tables seemed strangely futuristic and out of place in this gloomy cellar. Although Nikki, like her mother, was not a horror fan, she couldn't help but think of the laboratory of a mad scientist, a kind of modern-day Frankenstein, conducting horrific experiments on living people.

Lyons and Fisher had their smartphones out and were snapping pictures from time to time in the rooms that they thought would be suitable for staging Melanie's application video.

"Have you got everything you need?" Elizabeth asked after thirty minutes. "It's getting a bit stuffy in here."

Lyons and Fisher nodded. "Yes, that's enough for now."

"So we're doing the story now?" the lieutenant asked. "In the BPD?"

"Right," Fisher replied, licking his lips. "A mix of sender story and script that God of Blood jumps on immediately."

Jumps right in, Nikki thought. She still needed to determine if they were doing the right thing.

xxx

They sat together in the BPD conference room, each with a cup of coffee. Katherine, however, with her signature Earl Grey.

Fisher stood like a motivational speaker in front of a flipchart where he wanted to record their ideas with water-soluble felt-tip pens in different colors. Elizabeth turned her cup between her hands and eyed Fisher skeptically. "Go on then, Mr. PR agent of horror," was all she said.

Fisher smiled briefly as if he didn't know whether to be flattered or insulted by the label. "The very first thing we need," he explained, "is a believable killer positioning story for Melanie, something that will draw the God of Blood's attention to her and make her interesting enough for him to want to have contact with her. She has to tell a believable send-off story that immediately makes the God of Blood buy that she's the one."

"Send-off story means that Melanie is convincing as a person and through what she has already done or is currently doing?" asked Katherine with a furrowed brow.

"Right!" Fisher smiled. "Just like Donald Trump back then. He built his story perfectly, from the situation, disaster, turning point, and happy ending. The four-part harmony of every good story!"

Elizabeth furrowed her eyebrows. "Donald Trump? Did he kill people, too? Not that I'm surprised about that, but --"

"No," Fisher replied, taking a deep breath. "You don't have to like the former president, but he told a good, if certainly not accurate, story during the election campaign that contained all four elements of a good story - let's look at his story so you understand what I mean." He took a pen and began to write on the flipchart: "The situation was obviously under threat - drugs and migrants were flooding the country, according to Trump's story. The disaster: Mexican thugs were able to carry out their criminal activities unhindered. The turning point: a wall that Trump would build. The happy ending: an America that would be great again."

"And what about that? What was it called sender story?" asked Elizabeth. "He still had to explain what great thing he did and why Trump should be trusted with it anyway?"

Fisher's eyes lit up. "That's right! You listened well. He also delivered the story: Why Trump was the right guy to build this wall? His answer: Because I'm a contractor. If anyone can build a wall, I can!"

Katherine just grinned.

"Okay," growled Elizabeth. "And that worked?"

"And how it worked. He became the most powerful man in the world, right?"

"That was the Donald," Katherine said, "what are we doing with the Melanie? Not the most powerful man in the world, but the most horrible woman on the internet?"

Nikki nodded slowly. She had only listened so far.

"She's the sister of one of his murder tools," Nick recalled. "Would that make her interesting to him? It would be such a sender story in any case. Murder runs in the family."

"There's no way he should find out!" Nikki replied emphatically. "Besides, we made a firm promise to the parents!"

Elizabeth nodded slowly and looked closely at her daughter. "Her true identity will remain a secret. We don't want that scumbag to show up at her family's house any time soon, nor do we want Melanie Mcbride's reputation destroyed if anyone finds the video on the dark web and can attribute it to her."

Katherine took a deep breath and licked her lips. "So, what could her story be?" She looked at Fisher. "Do you have an idea yet?"

"She's a sadist, sick, but she thinks it's good," Fisher explained. "That's how she introduces herself to the God of Blood. She's always had it in her; she played the good girl to her parents and teachers, but she always got the most pleasure out of inflicting pain on others."

"And she tortured dogs and cats," Elizabeth suggested. "That's how it usually starts."

Fisher made a face. "Sounds a bit cliché. That's always the story: torture animals first, then kill people."

Katherine pursed her lips. "Yeah, it sounds like it." She hadn't missed the grim expression on Elizabeth's face as she grumpily turned her cup between her hands, "but that cliché is unfortunately true. Serial killers and criminal sadists usually start like that, cutting up earthworms as children or cooking them over the fire, putting flies in spider webs, and watching the spiders eat them - they kill cats. They sneak into the neighbor's garden at night to get the rabbit out of the stable and beat it to death. Or those maniacs who are always slashing the horses around here." She sipped her Earl Grey. "That's how it starts and gets worse every time. Sadism starts with animals and ends with people. It was the same with Jeffrey Dahmer or Ed Kemper, for example. But it still sounds very predictable. The God of Blood, who is certainly familiar with the history of serial killers, might find it too artificial."

Elizabeth sighed loudly and ran her fingers over her forehead. "But we need some story. Don't we do storytelling with a so-called sender story or whatever it's called?"

Fisher looked at her for a long time and nodded slowly. "Right, but storytelling isn't fairy-telling. Above all, the story has to be authentic and original."

Katherine sipped her tea again and leaned back in her chair. "We want the God of Blood to recognize something in Melanie that he recognizes in himself, don't we? Trust is built on common ground, isn't it?"

Nikki nodded in agreement. "I'd say that too. What's your point?"

"The fact that he abuses minors for his crimes doesn't just have to be because they're as good as underage."

Elizabeth sat up. "But what?"

"Think about the word abuse. Maybe it happened to this God of Blood himself; maybe he was abused as a child by an adult, possibly his father or uncle. It may not necessarily have been sexual abuse, but he felt abused, like an object. This is also something that his 'disciples' mentioned again and again. That, according to their God of Bloods, there are people - the girl, the child - who are just things, who you can do whatever you want to for that reason alone."

"That's right," Nick replied. "That's what he said in the videos."

Fisher stood at the flipchart and listened attentively. He hadn't written anything down yet.

Katherine continued talking. "Maybe he experienced it first-hand as a child, and now he wants to turn it around, so to speak, by becoming a perpetrator instead of a victim."

"Okay, that's the old serial killer story that John Douglas from the FBI used to tell," Elizabeth grumbled. "But what do we make of it?"

"A common ground. With Melanie!"

Nikki looked at her aunt. "That means Melanie too --"

The psychiatrist nodded slowly. "That's right. Melanie was also abused. Let's fix it that way. Let's make it sexual abuse in her case. She --"

"So, a story in which Melanie was abused as a minor," Fisher said with a frown.

"Yes. Melanie realized how much she liked torturing animals as a child, but she did it secretly. When she turned eleven, her father started molesting her. And she felt like an object. But she managed to turn her dominance over the weaker ones, the animals, into dominance over the stronger ones, which most people don't manage to do. Which should impress the God of Blood because that's exactly what he went through," Katherine continued.

Nikki furrowed her eyebrows. "What does that mean exactly?"

Katherine crossed her arms in front of her chest. "Well, what could that be? At some point, she put up a fight, but really. Maybe like this: When she was thirteen, she pushed her father down the cellar stairs, and he broke his arm and knocked out two teeth on a step. When he accused her of doing it on purpose, which was the case, she threatened him that she would tell everyone what he was doing to her if he didn't keep his mouth shut."

"So she turned the tables on him?" Fisher wanted to know.

"As if she'd not only pushed her father down the stairs but also taken the helm out of his hands --" Nikki mused with furrowed brows. She didn't like the story, but somehow it made sense. And she couldn't think of anything better.

Katherine took a deep breath. "That's right, and suddenly she was no longer the object; now it was him because she had him under control. He tried to push her again afterward, but she reminded him of his fall down the stairs, and he left her room. Now, she had the power. And she enjoyed having power, being able to do anything to people. She had a dark secret with her father that she could reveal at any time. First, she was his puppet; now, he is hers. And perhaps this is also how she found her victims. Another man who also wanted to abuse her. And she didn't just push him down the stairs. She killed him. And extremely bloody!"

Katherine had spoken very calmly and matter-of-factly, and her tone hadn't changed for a moment.

Sometimes, though rarely, Elizabeth was scared of her sister. That had stayed the same in all these years.

Fisher began to write notes on the flipchart.

Katherine nodded thoughtfully.

"Doesn't Melanie need a name too?" Nikki asked with a frown. "The puppeteer in the background calls himself God of Blood. She can hardly be called Melanie. If only to protect her."

"But not just any female God of Blood, Goddess of Blood in the end," said Katherine, "he shouldn't see her as a competitor. He wants her to be a kind of 'sister in spirit', but not someone who will take his title away. We have to get this balancing act right."

"So we have a gangster couple then?" asked Nikki. "Like Bonnie and Clyde?" Like every investigator, she knew the story of the two criminals who, during the Great Depression in the 1920s and 1930s, had made the Midwest of the USA unsafe with their robberies and killed fourteen people. Mostly police officers, until May 23, 1934, when cops near Black Lake, Louisiana, ambushed them, and their car was riddled with one hundred and sixty-seven bullets.

Katherine nodded slowly and furrowed her brows. "Yeah, sort of. They need to be a team, but there's no way she's taking the bread out of his mouth," the psychiatrist finished the sentence after getting up from her chair because Bonnie and Clyde were not what she was going for. "She should do what he says. While this Slaughterman could well take the bread out of the God of Blood's mouth --"

"What we don't know," Elizabeth replied, looking at her sister for a long moment.

"...but what he might think," Katherine pointed out, "and while the God of Blood increasingly sees Slaughterman as competition, he sees Melanie more as a soulmate. And as his student. Which makes him a teacher and, therefore, more valuable."

"So --" Elizabeth drained her coffee cup and frowned. "I think I know what you mean. We present him with a partner, a Bonnie or whatever, who he sees himself in, who has a lot in common with him --"

"And since we don't know who the God of Blood is, we create as much potential for identification as possible; something will fit," Fisher said, looking at Katherine.

The psychiatrist nodded slowly. "Exactly. A kind of reflection."

"We need a name for Melanie," Lyons said with a furrowed brow, speaking up for the first time.

Katherine cleared her throat. "Well, the guy we're after is called God of Blood. Firstly, we don't want Melanie to reveal who she is."

"And secondly, we want to give him as much opportunity for identification as possible," added Fisher.

"So," Katherine retook the floor, "what should she call herself?" She looked at Nikki. "Do you have a name that everyone knows?"

Nikki pursed her lips and shook her head.

"Hmm."

Silence.

But only for a few moments, until Lyons said, "Maiming Melanie ... That was the name of the sex-crazed murderess in a screenplay I had, but it was never realized.

"No," Nikki replied, shaking her head. "We don't want Melanie's name to give away who she is."

Katherine furrowed her brows. "Besides, the God of Blood wants high-profile content."

Fisher pushed his lower lip forward. "That's right."

Katherine suddenly stood bolt upright. "Got it."

Elizabeth tilted her head. "Out with it, doctor."

"Lady Báthory!"

Nikki blinked a few times. "That tells me something. The name sounds familiar somehow."

"Yes, that's right, we've talked about her before ... Erzsébet Báthory from Hungary. She was married in 1575 to Count Frenec Nádasdy, a descendant of Vlad Dracúl, the model for today's Dracula legend," explained Katherine.

"Dracula?" asked Elizabeth. "That's a man, isn't it?"

"My God, this isn't about Dracula," explained Katherine, a little annoyed, looking at her sister closely. "I read something about it recently. Báthory was supposed - and I emphasize supposedly because she may have been the victim of a political smear by the Habsburgs - but never mind: she was supposedly an absolute sadist, given to black magic, one who feasted on the suffering of her victims."

Elizabeth licked her lips. "How exactly?"

"She's said to have hung virgins from chains, driven needles into their breasts and under their fingernails, doused them with ice water, and led them naked into the cold until they froze to death."

Lyons suddenly seemed to be on fire, too. "Yes, I know that story too. She forced her servants to take part in her torture orgies. She bit whole pieces of flesh out of the victims' bodies --"

"As I said, it may have been a Habsburg conspiracy --" Katherine replied.

"But we'll leave the conspiracy out of it, of course. It's far too complicated." She turned to her sister again. "Anyway, Báthory would be ideal. There's even a black metal band called that. They used to call her the Blood Countess, and we wanted to lure the God of Blood. The fact that Báthory is the Blood Countess and went down in history as such and that he calls himself God of Blood connects them and forges them. But since he is the God and she is only a countess, by God's grace, so to speak, he remains the dominant part. She is the submissive partner. Subject to the man, as the Bible says."

"But she murders on her own?" Nick asked slowly.

"Of course," replied his wife, "she's completely emancipated. See also the thing with her father, the cellar stairs, and the other revenge killing that still has to go in. The only God she has is the God of Blood. She has no other gods besides herself. All others are her slaves."

"So we have our name then," Elizabeth realized and took a deep breath, "Lady Báthory. What happened to the real Báthory?"

"At the beginning of the 17th century, she was placed under house arrest for multiple murders. Two of her servants were burned alive, and Báthory herself was imprisoned in her castle, Cachtice, until her death. Some even say she was walled up alive."

"Very well," said Elizabeth. "On with the text. How do we proceed? What does the video we're producing look like?"

She was about to look around questioningly, but Fisher immediately took the floor: "We'll shoot it like one of those modern job application videos, similar to the ones that companies or agencies are sent."

"What?" asked Nikki in astonishment. "Is that what the God of Blood is supposed to go for? He's not a reputable company, he's a sadistic --"

Fisher didn't let the officer finish. "We don't do it quite like that, of course. We'll have plenty of blood, it'll be extremely dark, and we'll accompany it with the appropriate music." He looked at Lyons, who nodded enthusiastically. "But in principle, the approach is the same: Melanie will give a motivational speech, similar to a letter of application, in which you formulate your reasons for the respective application and describe why you are convinced that you are suitable for this particular job and why the respective company should hire you and no one else. Like the right application videos in the business world or for acting or advertising agencies: who you are, what you want, why you want it."

"We'll do this together," Katherine said to Lyons and Fisher. "You know how to appeal to horror fans; I know how to deal with serial killers. And Mike Fisher knows how to convince potential employers. The God of Blood is most likely all of the above.

Lyons nodded.

Nikki nodded, too, albeit reluctantly.